Thousands in Oregon protest taxes and bailouts, tea party-style

Doug Beghtel/The OregonianCorneliu Constantinescu sports a tea bag hat as a nod to the Boston Tea Party of 1773 during Wednesday's protest against taxes and government spending in Salem. Similar tax-filing-day rallies were held in downtown Portland and elsewhere in Oregon.

SALEM --An estimated 3,000 people crowded the state Capitol steps and more than 1,000 gathered in downtown Portland on tax day to protest corporate bailouts, government spending, saddling debt and, of course, taxes.

The anti-tax demonstrations were among 20 scattered throughout Oregon and hundreds across the nation modeled after the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Protesters dressed in colonial garb in Boston and carried pitchforks in Connecticut.

In Oregon, protesters served a warning to majority Democrats eyeing tax increases to plug the state budget, said Russ Walker, Oregon director of FreedomWorks and vice chairman of the state Republican Party.

Opponents of higher taxes, he said, would gather signatures to send any legislative surcharge to the ballot.

"This is the shot across the bow," Walker said.

The tea parties were hailed as a grass-roots uprising by their organizers, which included FreedomWorks, a Washington D.C.-based group headed by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

Democrats, however, dismissed the grass-roots nature of the rally as AstroTurf. As an alternative, the state Democratic Party urged people to donate toiletries and food to the Oregon Food Bank on Wednesday.

Democrats have proposed tax increases on beer and cigarettes, as well as higher fees on drivers and an increase in the $10 minimum tax paid by corporations. But House Majority Leader Mary Nolan, D-Portland, said most Oregonians realize they need to pay for decent schools, good roads and health services.

"There are thousands of Oregonians who are feeling the crunch of this economy, and they don't have the time to come to Salem to rant and rave," she said.

Walker said 3,200 people at the Salem event signed sheets to stay in touch. Signs and banners urged an end to a hodgepodge of items, including abortions, illegal immigration and bailouts. Others suggested drug testing of all elected officials. One small girl requested, in handmade print, that Congress please stop using her as an ATM.

At Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, more than 1,000 protesters carried similar signs that read "Don't tread on me" and heard similar anti-tax speeches at an evening rally that included a march to the Willamette River in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party.